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Draft
You can see all my draft picks and my comments at the link below:
http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=ga204
I appreciate any feedback. Either inline on the site itself (and let me know), or leave it here. I want to be able to move up to the Bring Wong and Kenji status of playing sometime where I feel confident enough to move up to 8-4s and break even there at least. At the moment with Swiss, I get the most play and continue to work on patching up all my leaks.
I thought I had the beginnings of a strong aggressive mardu warrior deck, but it didn't really pan out right. I needed more playable creatures, and either more mana-fixing, or more solidly staying in two colors before jumping in the third. In the end, mana issues were a big problem as I soon found out. Not sure what else I could have done. My deck had some good points of an aggressive warrior deck, but just didn't quite come together. See below:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8Qxh8wt.png)
Round 1
I had cards that needed a plains and didn't get them, other than a Warshrieker which I sacced a Leaping Master just to get his Raid to put in the Insect Mantis. I lost both games to a combination of Master of Pearls and Flying Crane Technique out of nowhere. 0-2 within 10 minutes. Very disappointing.
Round 2
Walkover, free win. HOORAY!
Round 3
Gave my opponent the walkover. MTGO crashed on me then my computer was acting all weird and my Pandora froze up my Firefox browser. I tried closing everything out but my computer was having none of it, so I rebooted the computer. By the time I got back on MTGO it was past the cut-off and I had given the round up. Really frustrating.
At least I pulled a fetch for 4 tix and got 1 walkover, which is the equivalent of 2.5 packs or so. 
Level ups
* I really need to adjust how I draft this format. I need to keep myself open longer. I should follow the advice of sticking with an enemy color pairing early on and later on splashing the 3rd for the clan as needed. That's my biggest problem with drafting this format at the moment and I feel like this would patch up the leak the best. I will be watching how the pros drafted this weekend and studying them for more insight.
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8-4s are definitely better EV than swiss, and it's practically impossible to break even if you don't play 8-4s. You also get to face better competition, which will help you learn more from your mistakes. On the other hand, you get to play all your rounds of swiss which is nice. I have to warn you that it's pretty difficult to break even in limited, unless you are good and play a lot. I am just under 1800 limited, and have been above that, but I've done slightly worse than break even.
My thoughts on the draft:
p1p1 I hate taking a gold card first pick, even though I think ankle shanker is probably the correct pick. I could easily see myself taking the mystic or a tri-land, though that might be wrong.
p1p2 This is the pick I disagree on the most. I think you have a big mardu/warrior bias judging by your first draft and this one. I understand that you first picked a mardu card, but there is no guarantee that you are mardu. Chief of the Scale is hard to cast, and again, you don't want to commit too early. I like bring low here, because it leaves you open to more decks. You can still play it if you're mardu. There is a much bigger payoff when you aren't WB. I also think bring low is just objectively more powerful than chief of the scale most of the time. That being said, taking chief early is nice in the sense that you can force warriors early.
p1p3 My deck isn't shaping up to be any creatures with high power/toughness, so Kin-tree and Dragon Grip(s) are out. Arrow storm is good, but double red and not sure how red I'll be. Disowned Ancestor is a warrior, but more defensive, so I went with some mana-fix instead.
You have no idea what your deck is shaping up to be as you have only chosen 2 cards. Kin-tree is pretty mediocre regardless, and you don't want to pick up a green card now. I think dragon grip is better than it looks, but is best with blue creatures. I don't think arrow storm is amazing or anything, but it would be my pick for sure if I had taken bring low last pick. That is probably just being results oriented though. If it had been between chief of the scale and debilitating injury on the previous pick, I would have taken the injury, and been in the same problem now. Although it still would've been easier, since I wouldn't be committing to as many colors. I think the fixing is correct now. Disowned ancestor definitely shouldn't even be on your radar either way.
p1p4 this pack is insane and I agree with your pick.
p1p5 I agree
p1p6 I agree. I don't think warshrieker is great, but I think that krumar is usually pretty bad.
p1p7 I haven't actually played enough with tormenting voice to know how good it is. I just wanted to say though that it's still early, and you could easily pick up enough targets for timely hordemate, and it would've been my pick. Being a warrior also helps, and you would rather be base WB than RB if you are planning to go warriors.
p1p8 through p1p15 I agree. I just want to note that in p1p12 someone took that dazzling ramparts over sagu archer, sieging bell strike, mardu roughrider, and possibly other cards, which is really weird to me.
My first 8 picks would have been:
mystic hidden way
bring low
arrow storm
burn away
uw land
ur land
glacial stalker
UB land
p2p1 nice pickup 
p2p2 agree
p2p3 It's unlikely that taking mardu hordechief will help your mana much. You typically want to be solidly in 1 to 2 colors, and only splash the third color. In this case it's not clear that white will be one of your main colors. It looks like white might be your splash or you might be solidly 3 colors, so you might as well take the much stronger card. That isn't to say you don't have mana issues, and it is looking like you are close to solidly 3 colors, which is a problem. I also think ruthless ripper is a better card than hordechief, and would take it before the mardu hordechief.
p2p4 I agree
p2p5 I agree
p2p6 ya
p2p7 ya
p2p8 ya
p2p9 ya
p2p10 I take ripper. I don't care if krumar is a warrior, ripper is the better card.
p2p11-15 ya
p3p1 I take mardu charm. I just think it's a much better card, even with the amount of warriors you have. It would be different if you didn't already have rush of battle and chief of scale, although I might still take the charm.
p3p2 I could see taking a second rush of battle, that card has been impressive to me.
p3p3-15 yeah
So it looks like someone to your right was mardu, as pack 2 was pretty unexciting. You had some nice pickups in the last pack, which really saved you. I don't think you could have maneuvered into more solidly 2 colors after the 1st pack, which is unfortunate.
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Taking Ankle Shanker -> Chief of the Scale into forcing warriors seems poor. Ankle Shanker isn't even like a huge bomb, Chief of the Scale is hardly the best Warriors incentive, and it wasn't even clear that the deck was available or open.
Quick thoughts:
- Hard to imagine a gold card that is merely good instead of a massive bomb is worth taking over a triland. I can see taking Ankle Shanker just not being too committed to the first pick but either triland is almost certainly better. Also can argue for taking Mystic of the Hidden Way but a triland is likely still better.
- p1p2 is mostly what hurts this entire draft imo. At this point you are already committing really hard to an archetype that might not even be in the packs this time around, and this colors all your picks from this point on. BW dual or Bring Low are more stable picks for sure. The dual is likely better than Bring Low at this point.
- p1p6 you haven't taken any red cards before this point, it's not clear you will play any red cards other than splashing the Ankle Shanker at this point. Smite the Monstrous and the two morphs are on-color; red is likely open to your right for the time being but likely being taken on your left due to passing a bunch of red removal (and a bunch of URx lands and cards); I'd rather just take a morph here or the removal spell here. Not a terrible pick but I think it's tunneling too hard on Mardu.
- p1p7, Timely Hordemate is a creature with a relevant type, at worst it's Hill-Giant-esque and it has relevant upside since you'd rather be attacking anyways. Tormenting Voice is a filler card at best here (also just card parity, not advantage). Probably the pick I disagree on the most in pack 1 as the first two picks are at least kinda defensible.
- p1p9 Valley Dasher mostly sucks and Summit Prowler is solid if you can make the mana work. I'd rather not have to play Valley Dasher ever.
- p1p11, you'd rather not have to play Siegecraft at all and Rotting Mastodon is at least a solid sideboard card. These kind of late picks are important!
- p1p12-15, worth noting Abzan playables and a Singing Bell Strike floating around still. None of these are really last-pick types so you might need to consider your options going into pack 2.
I think with the way the packs came through I would have ended up with a pile of lands or been leaning towards URx. Could also see drafting Abzan out of those packs.
- p2p3 Ruthless Ripper for curve + color considerations. BG dual and Abzan Charm after seeing all that late green is tilting.
- p2p4 Throttle is expensive but it's still instant-speed removal and affects combat at the very least. You're already lacking in business spells and I don't think a 4 mana card draw spell helps that cause. The morph is also defensible but not particularly great.
- p2p5 Probably just need to take the morph to keep up your creature count.
- p2p8 Take Up Arms is a pile of warriors, even if it's expensive. Likely better than Trumpet Blast, which you can probably pick up in p3 if you end up wanting one. Molting Snakeskin is also not the worst in BWx warriors.
- p2p10 Ruthless Ripper is good, Unyielding Krumar is mediocre and also another expensive card. You don't even have many warrior incentives, no reason to take a weak card here.
Really needed to pick up creatures in this pack imo
- p3p1 Charm or a morph seems safer. Can maybe even wheel the spoils. You have some warriors but they are all expensive at this point.
- p3p2 Rush of Battle or the morph. Curve is king.
- p3p4 the flyer is likely better but white is looking like a splash at this point. Previous picks are coming back to bite you at this point.
- p3p13 Shatter isn't always a card you get to bring in but you are always happy to have the option.
Final thoughts:
- Your final build was too creature-light. There's no way Bitter Revelation and Tormenting Voice should still be in the deck when you are leaving out morphs in your 13 creature deck.
- You should probably play the fetch as it gets a card in the yard for your delve creature.
- Curve was way too high.
- "Creature type- Warrior" is not a reason to ignore limited fundamentals.
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I agree with basically everything MCMcEmcee said actually, his response is better. He definitely took a better look at your picks , especially the later picks in packs and he looked at your overall curve, which I'll admit I didn't. P1p6, p2p4, p2p8, I didn't even notice some of the cards.
p1p1 I know I said ankle shanker was probably the right pick earlier, but it's not. A tri-land is.
p1p2 I'd still take bring low. I think dual lands are slightly overrated, and people focus on taking them too early to remain open/for fixing purposes. I'd rather just take a good card and follow/make signals, not that bring low is great or anything. Although, I know a lot of people better than me would take the dual, so take that as you will.
p3p1 Charm>morph, even with the number of creatures.
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Thanks for the feedback. I definitely have biased myself towards warriors decks since this one FNM where I just happened to be base white-black and ended up with a bunch of warriors so late picked up Raider's Spoils and Rush of Battles. Since them I've had a bias to relive that dream and it shows.
I think P1P1 and P1P2 were my biggest problems that led me down the path to forcing a deck, and one that might not be very open.
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EPT
